On the green bank, to look into the cleer
Smooth Lake, that to me seemd another Skie.
As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A Shape within the watry gleam appeard
Bending to look on me, I started back,
It started back, but pleas'd I soon returnd,
Pleas'd it returnd as soon with answering looks
Of sympathie and love; there I had fixt
Mine eyes till now, and pin'd with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warnd me, What thou seest,
What there thou seest fair Creature is thy self,
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow staies
Thy coming, and thy soft imbraces, hee
Whose image thou art, him thou shalt enjoy
Inseparablie thine, to him shalt beare
Multitudes like thy self, and thence be call'd
Mother of human Race: what could I doe,
But follow strait, invisibly thus led? (4.458-476)
What interested me about this part of Milton’s poem was how God, who is surely the voice which guides Eve away from the reflecting lake, manifests as an invisible voice rather than a physical being, yet is able to wield unyielding control over Eve. God’s intervention and prevention of vanity in Eve is brief, we see it play a large part in her character later in the poem, so it seemed to me that Eve’s exit from her state of self-love and vanity was a form of temporary control that God held (and used) over her. That is why I drew God as a cloud like entity, one which entered Eve and could just as easily exit. Another aspect of the poem which I found interesting and wanted to illustrate was the way in which God criminalized vanity, a concept which Eve did not understand to be bad before God intervened. I illustrated this by making Eve’s eyes gold, a color that for the sake of this project I associated with God, to show that God managed to alter her view of the world, at least temporarily in respect to her understanding of vanity. I also made the eyes of the reflection of Eve red, not necessarily to imply an evil force, but to show that through the God altered lens, Eve’s actions were not admirable.